


chaos

by maddy_does (favefangirl)



Series: Aaron Dingle Week 2020 [6]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Canon Compliant, Future Fic, M/M, Nostalgia, Pretty much no dialogue, Sort Of, a little bit, bartsy, especially when aaron/ross is :D, love that ben/aaron isn't a tag yet ;), thought piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:34:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27060523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/favefangirl/pseuds/maddy_does
Summary: Aaron thinks back to how life was before and wonders if it's really better this way.
Relationships: Aaron Dingle/Ben Tucker, Aaron Dingle/Robert Sugden
Series: Aaron Dingle Week 2020 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1940446
Kudos: 32





	chaos

**Author's Note:**

> [Aaron Dingle Week 2020](https://aarondingleweek2020.tumblr.com/) Day 6 (17th Oct): “Why are you hiding behind me? What did you do?” and/or “They know. I don’t know how they do, but they’ve figured it out.”
> 
> Big up @lizzzzoo @howellobrien and @like-the-first-time-i-kissed-you on tumblr for running this :)

Aaron’s life used to be chaos. And maybe it says something about him as a person, but he used to love it.

He loved sitting in the pub, unable to stop himself from grinning as Paddy stared longingly at his mum. The amount of times he wanted to go over there and tell him to just ask her out. It was a little bit tragic, really, how easily he would revert to that lovelorn devotion Aaron had seen and found a little pathetic when he'd first moved to the village. Robert would come sit down and ask what Aaron was smiling at, and he’d just shake his head and say nothing, because if Paddy really wanted Chas then he would have to do the leg work himself. Though he feared left to his devices, Paddy wouldn't make something happen until later, rather than sooner.

He’d go into work every morning and Adam would sit bolt upright as he came in, tell him some hairbrained scheme to make more money, or a new way to confess his undying love for Vic, or a ridiculous plan to piss off one of the Barton boys. Aaron would listen, roll his eyes, call him an idiot, and probably still end up getting roped into it alongside him. Sometimes he would think about what Edna said to him all those years ago when he came back from France, and wonder if maybe there was something in the way he felt about Adam. But it was usually Robert who got them out of their messes, and then it was Robert in his bed at night, and he wouldn’t change that for the world. 

He remembers mornings when they were all still living at the pub, piled nearly on top of each other. Some days trying to use the bathroom somewhat resembled the end scenes from The Hunger Games, and some days breakfast was riddled with awkward silences left over from fights the night before. Robert usually (when he wasn't the one in the wrong, a rarity to be sure, and still even then just so he could wind people up more) would make some inappropriate comment and Aaron would glare at him. Robert would give him that look of butter wouldn’t melt, but Aaron would go on pretending like he didn’t find him hilarious. 

Some mornings he’d be in the kitchen making toast for breakfast and Liv would come crashing through the door, place herself so that Aaron was between her and it. Aaron would just look at her, deadpan, and ask,  **“Why are you hiding behind me? What did you do?”**

Then Chas would come barrelling in behind her, face like thunder, having a go about some stupid prank or mistake or something she’d caught Liv doing. Aaron would then have to stand there and reprimand her as though he hadn’t done so much worse when he was younger. It was a rinse and repeat situation, because Liv would never learn. He’d go to the scrapyard later and tell Robert all about it, who would huff and moan and just generally pretend like he wasn’t a little bit in love with Liv, too. Or impressed, most days, when Liv had been a particular menace.

He remembers spending hours cleaning the Mill, putting away pans and toys and empty beer cans. Then Seb would come back from Liverpool and the house would be a mess again within a matter of minutes. He would groan on and on about how much of a pain in the neck it was, but everyone knew he loved it. He loved taking care of Seb, playing with him, sitting on the sofa with him to watch a movie at night. For a long while Robert’s lock screen was a picture of he and Seb, both fast asleep, curled up in bed together. Neither one of them had been able to drop off when Robert had gone to a meeting at work, but they’d managed to finally get some rest when they were sleeping with each other.

His life is almost ordinary now, and it really must say a lot about him that he hates it.

He sits in the pub and he watches Paddy and his mum dote on Eve, sidestepping the issue of their failing relationship. He can see the strain on both of their faces whenever they look at each other and it fills his mouth with a bitter taste. Ben grabs his hand across the table and asks what’s up, but he just shakes his head and says nothing. Inside he wonders which one of them is going to spoil the relationship first, and worries whether poor Eve will end up in the middle of it all.

He hasn’t heard from Adam in months. They used to call every few weeks which was risky, but worth it sometimes just to hear his voice. He’d report back to Moira because he’d promised to take care of her for him, and she’d look relieved every time. He misses Adam so much sometimes it causes him physical pain. Playing darts at the scrapyard, when he makes a joke no one laughs at that he knows Adam would’ve, when Ben drives him crazy and he doesn’t have his best friend to turn to. He finds himself thinking more and more about the time he tried to kiss him, wonders if things would’ve been different had he not done that, or at least reacted better. He wonders if they would’ve had more time together, then wonders if that even would've mattered at all. 

The Mill feels claustrophobic some mornings with Cain, Liv, Aaron and the kids all in the kitchen, climbing on top of each other to try and eat breakfast. Most of the time he forgoes the whole thing and grabs something on the way. Some days it’d be too obvious so he sits and eats his toast whilst Liv complains about toys left out and Cain shouts at Kyle about finishing his cereal. When Ben stays over it’s worse. He likes to put himself in the middle of the mess and looks like he loves every second. Aaron all but begs for them to go to the café for a coffee instead, but Ben just smiles and says he doesn’t mind it, like it's him Aaron's worrying about.

Liv is barely ever home, which is a blessing and a curse. They’re both a lot more independent now, which gives them both space to breathe. Liv is better at coming to him when there's an issue, too, which was a long time coming if he’s honest. But she mostly keeps her head down at school. Her grades got her into the sixth form and she’s properly sticking at it, not like Aaron did. He knows she could go on and really do well here, make something of herself. He doesn’t want to go mad and say Oxbridge, but he doesn’t see why she can’t go to uni for sure. She’s calmed down a lot now, just like he did, and she mostly just spends time with her mates, or does her homework, or looks after the kids when everyone’s busy. Aaron wonders if she’s just pretending she doesn’t miss Robert every waking second, too.

He still feels like he spends half his life cleaning the Mill, but it's the wrong toys. It’s Lego instead of cars, it’s action figures instead of giraffes. It’s movie nights spent in the chair on his own as Cain sits on the sofa with his boys looking about as close to happy as Cain Dingle gets. Aaron pretends like he doesn’t ache for Seb, for that life he and Robert were planning together, for children of his own. Ben brought it up once, having kids. It was one of those mornings where they’d stayed to drink their tea at the mill and he was playing with Isaac. He’d offhandedly mentioned that he quite liked the idea of kids some day. Aaron had swallowed around a lump in his throat and pretended not to notice Cain and Liv’s heads both snap up to look at him. None of them every mentioned it again, and Aaron pretends like he doesn't spend the nights he can't sleep (which is most, even now) thinking with dread about the prospect of a future like this.

Aaron misses the chaos. Misses mess, plots, love disguised by arguments. He misses feeling like part of a family, part of a team. He aches for a life before he lost the people most dear to him and hates the self-pity that comes along with knowing none of it was his fault. Ben will hold him at night and sometimes - not always, but sometimes - he has to struggle against the feeling of his skin crawling.

And above all he knows that however much he misses the chaos, he’ll always miss Robert more. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is very much not good which sucks because this was the last one i wrote (legit this morning when i should've been doing reading for an essay, lol) so it's anti-climatic for me to have started the week decent and then progressed to this :/ but anyway, i'm pretty sure there are a lot more thank yous etc on the fic tomorrow but at risk of repeating myself i just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has read any/all of my fics from this week, and an extra big thank you to anyone who's commented. it means so so much to me. i'd really fallen out of love with writing - especially fanfic - so it's been so nice to get back into it and to hear everyone's amazing feedback, so thank you thank you thank you!!!
> 
> anyway, if you wanna leave a comment or a kudos they're much appreciated! especially let me know if there's something you think i forgot to tag! i literally wrote and posted this so i can't promise greatness.
> 
> i'm taking prompts! if you're interested please drop the prompt in the comments below. if you do send a prompt be prepared for me to take fifty years to fill it because school is so hard (or, i guess, uni now, lol), but i promise i'll try! come say hi on tumblr: [@maddy-does](https://maddy-does.tumblr.com/). also, lemme know if there are any other challenges of this sort you find. i've enjoyed this week and would love to participate in other stuff.
> 
> thanks for reading, have a wonderful existence.


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